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Last weekend’s general assembly of
Real Madrid’s socios was another triumph for club president
Florentino Pérez, who announced some more bold construction plans
and new measures to ensure the club remained in madrileño
hands, while facing no questions about how the current economic crisis
sweeping Spain might be affecting his stewardship.

The most dazzling announcement was
a €250 million redevelopment of the club’s stately Estadio
Santiago Bernabéu ground. Pérez put forward four different visions,
from four leading international architects, of how the already
outstanding stadium might look in future.
Each design offers more protection from the elements for paying fans
and also a new building fronting onto the Paseo de la Castellana
featuring “a unique zone of great commercial quality,” Pérez
said.
A green light for the project could be given as soon as this month, with the work then taking place during the next three summers.

Construction was a theme of the assembly, as it has been throughout
Pérez's tenure, which began controversially a decade ago when the
club's previous training ground was sold to the city’s municipal
authorities. This
year there was also renewed talk of building a Real Madrid 'theme
park' at the club’s present Valdebebas training facility, where a
residence for the senior and youth squads is also planned.

Madrid’s members were also
informed that the club’s annual revenues had risen to €514
million in 2011-2012, leading to an annual profit of €24.2 million,
while over this period the club’s debt fell by 26.5 per cent to
€124.7 million. “I would like to state that these results are
spectacular, above all, given the economic circumstances we are
living in,” Pérez said.

The Real president
is well placed to comment on Spain’s currently troubled economic
circumstances (even if he personally does not bear much of their
brunt) as he is also the president of the country’s largest
construction company Grupo ACS (Actividades de Construcción y
Servicios). Its general assembly also took place in September, where
Pérez announced that the company’s debt now stood at €2 billion
euros, and had made an annual loss of €1.2 million. Shareholders
were assured however
that these results were due to a once-off misguided investment in
ailing Spanish utility giant Iberdrola, and the company's underlying
finances remained secure.

Not everyone sees ACS's future so
favourably. Last May the New York Times used the construction
conglomerate’s problematic debt-funded business model as an example
to highlight the serious issues facing the Spanish economy,
illustrating the story with a photo of a peeved looking Pérez and saying the company's
poor financial situation had lead to “a frantic campaign to sell
off assets, pay down debt and further distance itself from a Spanish
economy caught in a spiral of austerity and deflation.”

Pérez’s
football club has not been forced to sell off any “assets”, but
its transfer business in recent years has been much less spectacular
than previously. In his first term as president Madrid regularly
broke the world transfer record to sign galacticos Zinedine
Zidane (€73.5m), Luís Figo (€60m) and David Beckham (€37.5m),
while on his return to the club in the summer of 2009 Cristiano
Ronaldo (€94m), Kaká (€65m) and Karim Benzema (€35m) all
arrived in big money deals, which were financed by borrowing money up
front and then recouping it through increased sponsorship and other
revenues.

This model has so far worked pretty
well, but it is striking that the number of arriving galacticos
has dwindled in recent years, especially under present coach José
Mourinho. Fabío Coentrão
and Nuri Sahin were the biggest signings in 2011, while last summer
saw just one major arrival, with €30 million spent to bring Luka
Modric from Tottenham Hotspur. The club actually made a profit during
the most recent transfer window, raising approximately €35 million
by selling a mixture of squad players and promising youngsters. There
also seemed to be an attempt to get rid of the aging and injury prone
Kaká, although Pérez denied this, defending the transfer by saying:
“From a financial point of view he's worked out quite well.”

The biggest talking point of
Madrid’s season so far - the public ‘sadness’ of Ronaldo,
Madrid’s biggest playing asset - was unsurprisingly not dwelt upon.
One proposed reason for his supposed unhappiness was a lack of
backing from Madrid’s boardroom,
with the player unhappy that he had been left frowning empty handed
on the podium as Barcelona’s Andrés Iniesta picked up the 2011/12
UEFA Best Player in Europe Award in Monte Carlo last month. Iniesta
(and fellow nominee Lionel Messi) had been accompanied that night by
Barca club president Sandro Rosell and sporting director Andoni
Zubizarreta. Ironically (perhaps) Pérez could not attend as the ACS
assembly was held the same night.

A more understandable theory put
forward for Ronaldo's blue mood was that he feels undervalued at
Madrid. Although he has said (via Facebook) that he is not seeking a
pay rise from his current €10m a year, a rash of subsequent stories
in the Madrid media showed that Samuel Eto’o, Zlatan Ibrahmovic,
Wayne Rooney, Didier Drogba and worst of all Messi all now earn more.
With just three years remaining on the current deal, negotiations are about to begin between Pérez and the player's agent
Jorge Mendes. Mendes appears to have the stronger bargaining position
given his client's importance to Real on and off the field, and
reports that rival clubs such as Qatari-backed Paris St Germain or
Abu Dhabi-funded Manchester City are prepared to offer Ronaldo €20m
a year.

The changes wrought on the European
football scene by such billionaire foreign investors did impact more
directly on Madrid's assembly. After listening to the exciting
stadium news and impressive financial results, socios were
urged by Pérez to vote in a number of changes to the club’s
statutes. The most controversial was to raise the number of years
membership required for prospective presidential candidates from 15
to 20. Challengers for the post would also have to provide a personal
bank guarantee of 15 per cent of the club’s annual budget (i.e.
€75-80 million) from a financial institution recognised by the
Banco de España, while absentee votes would be cast using the
services of a legal notary not, as previously, through the universal
postal system.

Pérez argued these measures were needed to
protect the club from a takeover by an outsider without its best
interests at heart.

“We think it is reasonable that those
who aspire to this responsibility have been soaked in madridismo,”
he said.
“The more you suffer, the more you hold the colours in your heart …
We want the guarantee not from a non-existent island, but from a bank
with a face and eyes. If a magnate wants, he can come and present
himself, but as a candidate. I do not want to think bad of anyone,
not of Arab sheikhs or Russians, but this is our own thing.”

Film
buffs among Pérez's supporters might have winced at the reference to
“our thing” (“cosa de nuestros socios”), but the proposals also
raised some more serious concerns. 20 years seems an arbitrary amount of time, the bank guarantee
means only the wealthiest of the wealthy can run, while the new
postal vote regulations make it more difficult for members who cannot
attend the event in Madrid to cast their ballot. Taken together the changes stop potential challengers (possibly including ex-Real player Manolo Sanchís, businessmen Juan Miguel Villar-Mir and
José Manuel Entrencanales or even former Spanish prime minister José
María Aznar) from
running in next June’s election.

One of the more irate critics of the proposal was Vicente Boluda,
interim Madrid president for a spell in 2009, who has said he would
like the post full-time.

“The changes to the statues are
taking the club away from its socios,” Boluda said. “I do
not understand why you need 20 years as a socio to be
president. It excludes 90,000 socios. There is no motive for
this requirement, except that Florentino wants to eliminate
competitors for the next elections. I do not know who might oppose
him, but the few possible candidacies will be killed by these
statutes.” Ramón Calderón, president from 2006 to 2009, suggested that a
better way for Pérez to ensure his re-election would be to mandate
that all candidates' first names must begin 'Flo..'.

Both Boluda (who
is one of the 90,000 he mentioned) and Calderón (who resigned as
president after being accused of electoral fraud) obviously have
their own interested reasons for speaking out. But their argument was
echoed by other concerned socios, including Eugenio Martínez
Bravo, president of supporters group ‘Plataforma Blanca'.
“Florentino Pérez is tailoring the position to perpetuate himself
or his associates at Madrid,” Martínez Bravo told AS.

There were fewer complaints about
Madrid's slimmed-down transfer policy, or questions about why the
already super-modern Bernabéu needs a facelift when money might be required elsewhere. Neither was there
much analysis of how the same economic swings and roundabouts which
have damaged Perez's construction company could affect his football
club. All proposed motions were carried by large majorities, Marca
headlined its video report ‘A Placid
Assembly for Florentino’ and the main story on the event on Real’s
website
lead with Pérez’s dreams of delivering the longed-for décima
or tenth European Cup
this season.

Achieve that and Pérez's re-election
will be ensured, whichever way the economic winds blow.

Hay 3 Comentarios

I like the idea of 20 years as a socio,that will prevent some guy coming with money and promises and then leaving after a couple of years ,like in Malaga.I disagree with Perez in some things but I have to say that he is the best president we could have nowadays.Don´t see anyone even close to him at the moment .

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Authors (Bloggers)

Chris Finnigan is a freelance journalist based in Barcelona. He writes for Barcelona Metropolitan and is a book reviewer and reader for The Barcelona Review. He is a graduate of the London School of Economics. You can find him on twitter @chrisjfinnigan

Ben Cardew is a freelance journalist, translator and teacher, now resident in Barcelona after growing up gracefully in Scotland via Norwich. He writes for The Guardian, the NME and The Quietus, among others, on everything from music to digital media. You can find him on Twitter @bencardew

Fiona Flores Watson is a freelance journalist, guide and translator who has lived in Seville since 2003, and has been a writer and editor for more than 20 years. She writes for the Guardian, Telegraph and Sunday Times Travel Magazine. Originally from Essex, Fiona is also Consulting Editor of Andalucia.com and has her own blog, Scribbler in Seville. She has been contributing to Trans-Iberian since 2014 and tweets at @Seville_Writer

Koren Helbig is an Australian freelance journalist and blogger enjoying a life of near-eternal sunshine in Alicante. She writes for publications in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, focusing on stories exploring smart and positive approaches to social issues. She hangs out on Twitter at @KorenHelbig and keeps a selection of her favourite stories at korenhelbig.com.

Jessica Jones. Hailing from the north east of England, Stockton-on-Tees native Jessica has had a passion for all things Hispanic from an early age. She has lived in and written about France, Chile, Spain and Germany and has been contributing to the Trans-Iberian blog since 2012, when she moved to Madrid after graduating from Durham University. @jessicajones590

Paul Louis Archer is a freelance photographer, multimedia storyteller and artist educator. A cross-disciplinary worker, who endeavors to encompass the mediums of photography, audio design and writing. Born in Hertfordshire of an English father and Spanish mother. Based in the United Kingdom. @PaulLouisArcher

Vicki McLeod is a freelance writer and photographer. She has lived in Mallorca since 2004. Vicki writes about her beloved island for The Majorca Daily Bulletin, the only daily English language paper in Spain; produces regular columns for the Euro Weekly News, and articles for Spain-Holiday.com. Vicki runs PR strategies for several businesses in Mallorca and London as well as working on her own blogs and projects. She and her husband, Oliver Neilson, supply photo and text content for private clients via @phoenixmediamlr. She tweets at @mcleod_vicki.

Born in Newcastle upon Tyne and based in Barcelona, Alx Phillips writes about contemporary art, dance and theatre in a way that human beings can understand. For more previews, reviews, interviews and extras, check: www.lookingfordrama.com.